Moving walkways are a commonplace feature used in many buildings. Conventional moving walkways are typically used for conveying people from a first location to a second location, for example as escalators in shopping centres/malls or as travelators in airports.
Moving walkway systems include a continuous looping stairway (e.g. in escalators) or walkway (e.g. in travelators). These have been developed to transport persons in a fast and efficient way across a relatively short distance and are often found in buildings and venues to provide a fast-throughput alternative to lifts, stairs or walking.
An example of a conventional moving walkway system is an escalator. An escalator typically functions by driving a number of adjacent steps around a continuous loop. Each step is secured at its base to a chain or multiple chains, which form the continuous loop. The chains are wrapped around gears sprockets located at the two ends of the escalator. The gears sprockets are driven by a motor, which causes the chains to rotate about the gears sprockets and the steps to traverse the loop. There may also be a moving handrail mechanically associated with the gears. Systems such as these are commonly found in underground or subway systems and allow a person or material to be traversed both horizontally and vertically.
A travelator functions in a similar fashion to an escalator but generally without the vertical displacement. In this case, the gears and the steps are configured to provide a horizontal displacement.
Conventional moving walkways often utilise complex control and monitoring systems. These are included to help reduce damage and costs that would result from any failure of the conveyor or motor and to reduce the risk of danger to the persons they are conveying. These systems therefore cannot easily be modified and the removal or alteration of these systems can render the walkway unsafe and cause the operator problems with maintenance, liability and insurance and be a difficult and expensive process.
The loop of steps that makes up part of a moving walkway can, under certain circumstances, fail by virtue of one or more steps falling from the transporting mechanism—typically a chain. Other situations may arise where one or more steps have to be replaced due to normal wear and tear.
Monitoring devices are available that are able to detect missing steps in moving walkways. These typically detect the small gaps that exist between steps. When a larger than normal gap is detected, the moving walkway is halted. This condition is typically reset by pressing a button to reset the monitoring device and subsequently re-enable automatic operation of the moving walkway.